Darnit Nokia, we were rooting for you!
Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock (in which case, ouch) , you picked up on Nokia’s announcement of their first Windows Mobile phones, the Lumia 800 and 710. The 800 manages to look a lot like the previous Nokia flagship, the Meego sporting N9. It’s actually .2 inches smaller in the screen department, but that’s negligible, really.
A rare time when size matters not.
The 800 has a faster chip, same rear camera, slick design, 16GB internal storage (caveat: the N9 also comes in a 64 GB flavor).
What the 800 is lacking is a front-facing camera, which is baffling when you consider that Microsoft, the OS maker, also owns Skype. That should be some killer synergy. Also, you can’t use it as USB storage. Boo! TV out is less of a killer app, but not being able to use your phone as your flash drive is seriously going to cramp some people’s style. Also puzzling is Nokia’s bundling Nokia Music. Is there no Zune store in the European Union?
Pretty, but powerful enough?
It’s also lacking a timeframe for a U.S. touchdown. I know we’re not the center of the universe (shock!) but it’d be nice. The Lumia 710 already has a landing page on Nokia US, but no details beyond that. No news on a network yet either, but if I had to put money down on which of the two US GSM networks it’d be on, I’d guess AT&T (c’mon T-Mobile, shock me).
I like the Lumina 800’s styling. It was cool when it was the N9’s look and it’s cool now. It stands out and looks like more than Just Another Slab. However, if I have a choice between this or almost any upcoming Windows Mobile Phone from Samsung or HTC, I can’t say I’d chose this. Although I’m dying to be proven wrong.
Nokia needs to get some subsidies going, no one is going to pay $400-500 for these phones. Are they powerful enough with a single core 1.4 ghz CPU on-board with Windows mobile I’d say that is good enough. Amazing the N9 had a front facing camera but the 800 is missing one yet they are the same hardware?
There’s Zune store in Europe AFAIK, but I don’t think many people around here use it…
As for the phones, I kind of like them, but I really find the Lumia 800 vastly overpriced (420€ VAT not included), the more if you compare it with it’s “little” brother the Lumia 710 (270€). It’s hard to justify paying almost twice for a phone which offers little more than a sleeker design and a better camera as extra features.
On the other side of the fence though, the 710 looks like a winner to me in the mid-range market, that is, if it delivers all it promises of course. It’s a pity that it’s not scheduled to be available until early next year.